Let the drying begin

STOCKTON - Record rainfall and strong gusts of wind slammed Stockton and the region Sunday, but it appears the worst of the recent storms is over.

Roger Phillips

STOCKTON - Record rainfall and strong gusts of wind slammed Stockton and the region Sunday, but it appears the worst of the recent storms is over.

The National Weather Service reported that Stockton was pelted with 1.23 inches of rain Sunday, submerging a 38-year-old record for the date of .94 inches set in 1974. There also was a reported wind gust of 40 mph in Stockton at 7:25 a.m., according to Jim Mathews of the National Weather Service.

Mathews said it should be dry until a milder front passes through the area late Tuesday and into Wednesday, after which there will be at least a few days without rain. Morning fog is a strong possibility this week, Mathews said.

Close to 2,000 customers scattered around Stockton were without power at various times Sunday. Molica said most had their power restored by 7 p.m. Parts of Sherwood Mall went dark for several hours Sunday night, but that outage was intentional, according to Molica, so crews could safely perform storm-related repairs.

"It was a very short but very, very intense storm," Molica said. "Within about six hours, it did a lot of damage in the Bay Area, the North Coast and in parts of the Central Valley."

Sunday's downpour also caused flooding and outages in other parts of San Joaquin County and in Calaveras County. Molica said more than 300 PG&E customers in Lodi and 19 in Lathrop lost power, but all were restored by early evening. More than 90 customers lost power in Tracy early Sunday night, and PG&E was working to diagnose and fix that outage.

Mathews said the next storm system should hit late Tuesday afternoon. Most of the rain is expected to fall north of Stockton. As much as a quarter of an inch might fall through Wednesday, Mathews said, with temperatures topping out in the low 60s.